Milei exposes local football rift by skipping Trump’s World Cup show

President Javier Milei had planned to go to Washington this week for Donald Trump’s big World Cup event. Then he abruptly cancelled, in part because of a brewing football controversy at home.

An increasingly public spat with the head of the Argentine Football Association was a factor in skipping the 2026 FIFA World Cup draw, according to a person familiar with Milei’s decision. Slow progress on a long-sought US trade deal, of course, offered another reason for the well-travelled libertarian leader to stay home.

The president and the federation chief, Claudio 'Chiqui' Tapia, are at odds over Milei’s attempt to allow private ownership of teams in the football-obsessed nation. Tapia is set to attend Friday’s ceremony, which divides the 48 competing countries into 12 groups for the first round, so sharing the stage would have been awkward.   

Last-minute changes the AFA made to local tournaments also shattered a fragile truce between the two men ahead of the World Cup – likely Lionel Messi’s last – and thrust Argentina’s beloved national pastime onto the political battlefield.

For Milei, the timing is delicate. The government is preparing a major legislative push next week so he won’t want to alienate allies or risk being blamed for any turbulence ahead of next year’s edition of the world’s most-watched sporting event. 

“Milei can’t afford to trigger a crisis over football right now,” said Lucas Romero, head of political consultancy firm Synopsis, warning that any move against AFA could provoke Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) sanctions against the national team. “That’s a dangerous boomerang.”

Milei is pushing to open Argentine football to private capital in a bid to attract foreign investment that represents a direct challenge to AFA, which oversees a system historically run by non-profits. The nation is one of the few major players of the sport that still bars private ownership of clubs.

A 2024 presidential decree would have allowed teams to become for-profit corporations and bring in outside investors if their members approved. But the AFA rejected Milei’s move and a court later froze the measure.

Argentina erupted into a national frenzy in 2022 when Messi and his teammates won the country’s third World Cup in a dramatic penalty shootout in Qatar. But at home, fans increasingly lament a domestic league they see as chaotic – marked by constant rule changes, shifting relegation formats and a First Division expanded by nearly a dozen smaller clubs. 

That frustration erupted on November 20, when the AFA abruptly created a new trophy and crowned Rosario Central – the team then leading the standings midway through the season – with a title that hadn’t existed a day earlier.

“This was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back,” said Ariel Senosiain, a leading sports journalist.

Tapia faced a barrage of chants in stadiums and outrage on social media. The federation nonetheless stood firm and sanctioned Estudiantes de La Plata, the only club to publicly oppose the decision and one of the few vocal supporters of Milei’s privatisation push. 

Milei quickly stepped in. On social media, he posted photos with an Estudiantes shirt, which also appeared draped over his presidential armchair in official images. Though the president himself largely avoided naming Tapia, Senator Patricia Bullrich led the charge.

Estudiantes “stands with real fans. Tapia stands with the old political class and the same mafia as always,” Bullrich, Milei’s former security minister, said in a post on X.

“The government sees growing public anger toward Tapia and is trying to ride that wave,” Romero said. The AFA didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Tapia has longstanding ties to the Peronist movement, which governed Argentina for nearly three of the four decades since democracy was restored in Argentina. During the 2023 presidential campaign, the AFA leadership openly backed Peronist candidate Sergio Massa, Milei’s rival who ultimately lost in a run-off.

The latest drama is also unfolding as Tapia faces public scrutiny over his wealth. He doesn’t earn a salary as AFA chief – he does from two other jobs – but declared seven properties in his name, as well as net annual income of over US$565,000. Questions have also been raised over a compound outside Buenos Aires with a helicopter pad that reportedly isn’t registered with Argentina’s aviation authority.

Argentine football clubs, meanwhile, have been worn down by years of crisis. Even with the recent relief of a stronger peso and a handful of marquee signings, fans still see a poorly run league – and a widening gap with rivals in Brazil. 

“The Argentine football model is broken,” said local fan Ignacio Sarraute. “The current league is unsustainable. It’s almost impossible to watch. Why would anyone invest?”

Brazilian teams have won the past seven Copa Libertadores tournaments – South America’s top club competition and a regional obsession – backed by stronger television deals, bigger sponsorship markets and a far deeper player-sales pool. The last Argentine team to win the championship was River Plate in 2018.

Guillermo Tofoni, a longtime sports-business entrepreneur and supporter of Milei’s private-capital model, argues constant tinkering with formats makes the league harder to commercialise. “Every year clubs take on more debt and end up selling their best players just to balance the books,” he said. “Fix the structure and investment could reach US$3 billion.” 

Still, many argue private money is no cure-all. Defenders of the current model say clubs in Argentina play a broader community role, supporting dozens of non-profit activities that could vanish under corporate ownership. And even if the law allowed it, it’s not clear that foreign money would pour in.

“There’s an assumption that a wave of investors will arrive, but that’s not how this works,” said Mariano Elizondo, director of the centre for sports studies at Austral University. “Many clubs would never attract investors — and several big ones wouldn’t want them.”